Horton the elephant ponders the speck on which Who-ville exists, in 'Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!' .

The live-action "Grinch" flick fell well short of killer,and its cat-in-hat cousin was litter-box filler. But with "Horton," a Seuss film that's long been awaited, the doc proves he's best when his stuff's animated.
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By Mike ScottMovie critic

Wubbulous.

If there's a single word that best describes "Horton Hears a Who!" the newest film based on a story by children's author Dr. Seuss, that would have to be it.

Don't ask what it means exactly. It somehow it just feels right. And, after all, the good doctor's works are as much about a feeling -- specifically, that unique Seussian feeling marked by a combination of brilliantly original rhyme schemes, delightfully relevant stories and charmingly weird illustrations -- as they are about anything else.

The upshot: After the short-of-memorable live-action version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000) and the wholly forgettable live-action "Cat in the Hat" (2003), Hollywood has finally found the key to bringing a Seuss story satisfactorily to life.

Of course, no film can capture the comfortable verbal groove found in reading a Seuss tale aloud to the Cindy Lou Whos and Bartholomew Cubbinses in your life. But with "Horton Hears a Who!" 20th Century Fox comes close, offering a film that is warm-hearted and whimsical, fun and fantastical, and downright Seussical, a word that implies a very specific -- and very wubbulous -- brand of fuzzy magic.

Kangaroo -- with son Rudy in her pouch -- lectures Horton on the 'impossibility' of life existing on a speck on a clover.

DR. SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO!

3 stars, out of 4

Plot: Despite facing ridicule from his peers, an elephant is determined to save the residents of microscopic Who-ville.

What works: The filmmakers manage to update the classic tale without sacrificing any of its heart.

What doesn't: Not unlike the titular pachyderm's underside, things sag a touch in the middle.

As it turns out, the key to it all, the secret to capturing that Seussical sensation, has nothing to do with stuffing actors into furry Seuss suits. Rather, it lies in -- and why, oh, why, in the name of Morris McGurk did it take Hollywood three shots to figure this out? -- the art of animation.

This isn't the same 2-D animation that brought Horton and his Jungle of Nool to life in its 1970 made-for-TV incarnation (though there is a short homage to that style in the new "Horton Hears a Who!"). Instead, the big-hearted pachyderm -- who, despite facing ridicule from his nonbelieving peers, is determined to save the residents of a microscopic community -- gets the computer-animated treatment, courtesy of Fox partner Blue Sky Studios ("Ice Age," "Robots").

And here's where the Blue Sky folks really nailed it: Rather than sell out entirely and crank out a slick, sophisticated and decidedly un-Seuss version, they dialed back the available technology a hair, and, in so doing, keep reasonably true to the elegantly oddball flavor of the 1954 book.

So the backgrounds aren't chock-a-block with details, the landscape of Who-ville is as unnatural as ever, and there's nary a straight line in sight -- and the film is better for it. (One gets the feeling Dr. Seuss -- aka Theodore Geisel -- would have heartily approved. His widow, Audrey Geisel, worked with the makers of "Horton Hears a Who!" and is listed as one of the film's executive producers.)

Best of all, the myriad positive messages in "Horton Hears a Who!" are alive and well. The most prominent of those -- and the most well-known -- is Horton's contention that Who-ville is worth saving, "because a person's a person, no matter how small," a statement about the value of life that seems simple but that is about as weighty as they come.

That phrase is wonderful for its universal nature -- it can be interpreted in any number of ways -- but there are other messages embedded in "Horton Hears a Who!" for those who bother searching for them.

Every bit as important as its messages, however, is the element of fun in the film, which first-time directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino play up as they expand the story from book length to feature-film length.

Naturally, there's a fair amount of slapstick and similar silliness to keep the attention of the Thing 1s and Thing 2s in the audience, but there's also enough there -- including several subtle references to other Seuss works -- to keep parents in the audience reasonably entertained.

Hayward and Martino allow the story to sag a touch in the middle, but they bring things around nicely in the final, satisfying act of what easily ends up being the best recent Seuss creation this side of Solla Sollew.

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MOVIE NOTES

Emptying the critic's notebook on "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!":

Thing 1: This isn't the first time "Horton Hears a Who" has gone from the page to the screen. He was previously the subject of a 1970 animated short, made for TV by animation legend Chuck Jones.

Thing 2: The voice of the narrator in the new "Horton" might sound familiar to moms and dads in the audience: It is that of TV newsman Charles Osgood.

Thing 3: The computer-animated clover on which the Who-ville speck rests in the film is made up of 1 million individual "hairs."

Thing 4: The idea for one of the film's more memorable scenes -- one in which Horton tries to cross a rope bridge while the mayor of Who-ville visits the dentist -- came from the mind of one of the film's stars, Jim Carrey.

Thing 5: "Horton Hears a Who!" was the second Dr. Seuss book to feature the compassionate elephant. The first: 1940's "Horton Hatches the Egg."

Thing 6: Rumor has it that the makers of "Horton" are eyeing Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" as an upcoming project, with a finished product possibly by 2011.